Ok – I’m not in favour of cutting down the rainforest (just in case there was any doubt) but for any large business today there’s a dizzying alphabet soup of compliance that’s coming down the rails. It can feel like a forest.
As I said in a previous blog, the role of sustainability professionals is to help companies navigate this complexity, while still providing the right level of strategic insight for boardrooms. How do you clear the forest of compliance? You don't cut down the trees; you use them to paint a compelling picture.
In this post, I want to provide a few more practical tips about how you might go about doing that.
The first point is that, as experts, it is our job to understand all the complexities in its gory detail. So, you need to know your CSRD from your CSDDD. Many of these rules are going to come in over the next few years, so now is the ideal time to do the research and learn what is what.
This complexity can be intimidating, but there’s an important point, which is often overlooked. Many of these frameworks overlap with each other.
The EU CSRD reporting rules can encompass many of the disclosure requirements from other pieces of legislation. CSRD can become the overarching framework into which other bits of compliance will fit.
Let me bring this to life a little bit.
If you are of any scale at all, you will need to report on your approach to managing greenhouse gases in your business and how you are helping mitigate climate change. You will also likely need to comply with the recommendations of the Taskforce for Climate related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) as well as publishing your Transition Plan and specific disclosures under ESRS E1 Climate Change.
This could make the story you tell about how you are addressing the climate emergency overly complex and hard to navigate. Time poor leaders won't enjoy trying to understand the precise differences between these frameworks.
I'm old enough to remember the days of GRI reporting as the gold standard, a framework which was also beset with all manner of complexities.
The trick, then as now, was to ensure you are meeting all the right disclosures while also telling an interesting story. While the new legal frameworks are mandated and not voluntary, the same principles can apply.
As a sustainability professional and communicator, you should create a single narrative that complies with all the frameworks, but also engages the audience and draws attention to the most critical actions and decision points.
Just because we're talking about compliance sustainability reporting doesn't mean we can't be creative! The latest research tools, that we use at Four32, can produce a depth of insight into how your message lands, that was previously unimaginable. We can discover what your customers, shareholders and employees are talking about and help you marry up your compliance story with your wider brand communications.
In that way, you can produce authentic, compliant communications, that also engage and inspire your audiences. That's what I mean by clearing the compliance forest. Don't cut down the trees, but instead use them to paint a compelling picture.
Do get in touch if you want to find out more.
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